


A Pale Margin

by norgbelulah



Series: The Margins [1]
Category: Justified
Genre: Bad Weather, M/M, Make Them Do It, Pre-Canon, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 08:16:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/595526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/pseuds/norgbelulah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raylan and Boyd lose some time on a drive up into the hills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Pale Margin

There is fog on the road ahead of them, strange for the afternoon, thicker than Raylan can remember seeing before. 

He looks over at Boyd. “It’s too hot for fog,” he tells him.

“You’re right, Raylan,” Boyd says, watching the road as he drives with a serious eye. “There ain’t no stream here and there hasn’t been a drop in temperature.” 

The windows of the truck are open, breeze flying free and warm, or it had been. The closer they drive to the fog, the cooler the air coming in becomes. It’s growing darker too.

Boyd frowns. “What the hell,” he murmurs, but doesn’t slow.

Raylan doesn’t think to tell him to.

They are on the Far Hollow Road, driving to get some ‘shine Boyd’s daddy wanted from some people up in the hills. They aren’t even in the hills yet, though. They’ve only been driving for twenty minutes.

They break through the fog, so dense it’s almost white, like they’re driving through a wall and then they’re in it, like they’re pushing through water. They can only see maybe five feet in front of them, but Boyd barely slows.

The whiteness streams in through the open windows, chilling the air, but filling it with a strange, clean smell that leaves something sweet clinging to the back of Raylan’s throat. He feels himself relax, not slump in your seat relaxation, but something in him eases just a little and he looks over at Boyd and smiles.

The truck slows now, and Raylan thinks Boyd’s foot must have lost some of the pressure he was putting on the gas. He blinks, too, slowly, then frowns and steers the car off the road, putting it into park in a very deliberate way. He looks over at Raylan. “It’s too thick to see,” he says. “That’s... dangerous.”

Everything seems very slow and very quiet and they sit in the truck, in the whiteness all around them and just sort of smile softly at each other.

“We were going somewhere,” Raylan says after some time.

“Were we?” Boyd hardly ever sounds so unsure.

As soon as he speaks, Raylan isn’t so sure either. But they must have been because why else would they be in the truck? He puts a hand on the dash, as though making sure it’s real, and that’s reasonable because everything seems so unreal, distant and calm.

Something shifts next to him and he turns to see a boy smiling at him. He likes this boy, he knows he does, so he smiles back. 

“What’s your name?” the boy says.

“Raylan,” he answers. He likes this boy’s eyes. They are green and dark and they stand out in the whiteness all around them. “What’s yours?”

The boy shakes his head, once, in a graceful movement, but he’s still smiling. “Don’t know,” the boy says.

He laughs a little. “Me either.”

“Well, you asked.”

He shakes his head too, longer. He meant, “Don’t know mine.”

The boy frowns, like he’s being stupid. “It’s Raylan.” It sounds lovely on his tongue.

“Oh, right,” Raylan says and the boy laughs. Raylan likes that he laughs.

The boy looks around the truck a bit, pases his hand across the keys in the ignition, as though reminding himself how it works. He looks back at Raylan with a twinkle in his eye. “You wanna go somewhere, Raylan?”

Raylan is watching his mouth as he speaks and he doesn’t understand the question immediately. He likes the boy’s mouth. He likes it saying his name.

“No,” he says, and glances out the windshield. “We wouldn’t make it far.” 

The boy laughs again, though softer and strange. “Yeah,” he says and looks through to the whiteness. He reaches out the window to his left and kind of scoops some of it up in his hand. It blows away soon enough, taken in or out by the weight of their breaths.

The boy closes his eyes, breathes deeply and turns in the driver’s seat to face Raylan, bringing his knees up and crossing his legs on the seat. He smiles, as though seeing him for the first time. “You’re real pretty,” he says. “What’s your name?”

He opens his mouth and doesn’t know. He smiles anyway and says so.

The boy shrugs, careless and calm. “Me either.”

He thinks that’s kind of funny, but only smiles wider. He leans forward. He wants to be nearer this boy. He wants.

“You feel funny?” the boy asks, not really frowning. He’s thinking. He doesn’t need to do that.

He doesn’t know what the boy means. Is this different than normal? Than always? 

He reaches for him and the boy is there. The boy wraps his hand around his arm and he draws the boy near, on top of him. They’re crowded, close. He likes it. He puts his hands on the boy, his shoulders, his arms.

“Push the seat back,” the boy says. When he doesn’t understand, the boy pushes his hand down under the seat. “Pull the lever.”

He does and there’s room and the boy sinks onto him. He suddenly knows something, something wonderful, and he smiles up, drawing his hand up to the boy’s cheek. “Boyd,” he says.

“Oh,” Boyd says and grins. “Raylan,” he says and presses his lips to Raylan’s indrawn breath. Raylan takes his kiss, purses his lips against Boyd’s, slow like everything else. He opens his mouth, takes his tongue too. He tastes good.

Boyd breaks off, put keeps his face near, his breath ghosting over Raylan’s skin, their foreheads pressed together, eyes closed. It’s like the kiss itself exhausted him. Raylan feels Boyd’s lips smile against his cheek. “My head was empty,” Boyd says.

Raylan huffs something that’s not quite a laugh. He feels almost spent too. His fingers are in Boyd’s hair. He traces lines and circles across Boyd’s scalp. Boyd groans softly. They’re hard against each other, buzzing warm, but too heavy, too slow.

Boyd pulls back a bit, just enough to look Raylan in the eyes. His are green, beautiful. He can’t remember noticing before. 

“You filled it up,” Boyd says, like Raylan had given him a gift.

Raylan’s head had been empty too. “What’s happening?” he asks softly. He hasn’t taken his hands off Boyd.

Boyd’s eyes are closed again. He smiles. His hand travels from Raylan’s chest, down his stomach. He burns, low, warm. “What do you mean?” Boyd asks.

The wind picks up and the white closes around them, drifting in through the still open windows. Boyd breathes deeply and sinks lower onto Raylan’s lap. When he opens his eyes, he smiles like a stranger. His hands are still on Raylan’s face and in his lap. He parts his lips. “Hello,” Boyd says.

Raylan searches his face. “You know me,” he says.

Boyd’s smile falters, only just, and widens again. “Do I?” His gaze falls to Raylan’s mouth. He speaks slowly to it. “That’s...real pretty.” 

Their lips meet and Raylan breathes deep again, and it’s sweet and good and when he opens his eyes there is a boy smiling at him. The boy is in his lap. The boy’s hands are in his hair. “Hello,” he says to the boy.

The boy smiles and rests a hand between his legs. He licks his tongue up the boy’s long neck. The boy moans. He wants. “Please.”

“Okay,” the boy whispers and slides his fingers down his front. He pushes up against the pressure, but there’s no room. They are against the seat, against the dash. No room. The boy makes a noise of frustration, softly whining. His hand is at the door, wrapping around the handle. He pulls and they fall in a heap from the truck.

Everything is white. They breathe it in and out with their laughs. He forgets the boy’s face from one moment to the next, as the white swirls around it. He makes small noises of discovery every time it’s revealed again. The boy looks at him with wonder, touches his face, climbs on top again.

They pull their clothes down, away. He smiles up at the boy, but his mouth goes slack when he touches him. He reaches for the boy too and they press close and they breathe and they move so slow. Everything is bright now and they cry out together. 

The boy falls on top of him, heavy, warm. He smiles. “Good.”

The boy smiles too and looks at his face, eyes large and dark. The boy touches his face with sticky fingers, tracing lightly. “You’re mine,” the boy says.

He thinks that’s right. “Mine too.”

His boy grins and rolls to the side, still pressing close. They are in the grass. Everything is white, even that. There is no sound but their breaths, but the shifting of their limbs, the side of their fingers as they touch each other’s skin. His boy kisses this skin on his arm, down to his palm.

The white descends again, flows thick, too thick to see. He reaches for his boy’s face, pulls their lips together, breathes in. His boy’s eyes are closed, his face is slack, but when he opens them he smiles.

“You’re mine,” he tells his boy and everything feels good.

“Oh,” his boy whispers. “Yeah.”

He doesn’t want to move anymore. He is heavy, slow. His boy is here. The white is like a blanket.

Something shifts the cloud around them. There’s a sound of walking, a voice too. The voice says, “Truck parked on the side of the road. Shit, they must have just missed the road closure.”

Then, “No, no one in the vehicle. Yeah, I’m looking.”

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t want to. He listens to the voice like a song, like it’s something he’s never heard before. His boy shifts, hearing it too, but his boy only pulls him closer, pressing lips to his shoulder.

He hears steps closer, swishing through the grass. It’s a man in dark clothes. There is something covering his face.

“Shit, it’s two redneck kids.”

He tilts his head and smiles. The man is talking to a box in his hand. There’s a funny sound coming out of it, maybe words. He can’t understand them.

“No, two males. Yeah. I mean, they look okay, if far gone.” The man kneels down, not too far away. The white swirls around his figure. He smiles at the man. “Boys.” 

His boy turns to look. “Hello,” his boy says. His boy curls fingers around his wrist, claiming.

“Boys, do you know your names right now?”

They smile at the man. They don’t. Does it matter?

“Do you know how you got here?”

His boy turns away, back to his shoulder. His boy presses close, lips trailing up, hand pulling his fingers into his boy’s mouth. He forgets to answer the question. Hasn’t it always been the white?

He is warm again, buzzing with it. 

He likes the sound of the man’s voice, he likes the burr of the noise in response, over and under the man’s words. “Alan, what are the chances of overexposure with this? Yeah, I fucking read the file, but these poor kids. I mean, the regular memory loss--yeah, and sedation, but also _severely_ lowered inhibitions. And I’m not sure either of them can form a sentence right now.”

He smiles. His boy grins, whispers, “Why talk?” He laughs and his boy laughs too.

“Well, I guess they’re listening. No, I don’t know their personal history, Alan. You think I can just ask them right now? How many hillbilly teenagers do you know go riding around in the back woods, fucking each other on the side of the road?”

“Fuck,” he whispers to his boy. He forgot that word. “ _Fuck,_ ” his boy says too and they both laugh.

“Well, shit, now they have a sense of humor.”

His boy’s hand is on him again and he moans. The white is all around them and it’s clean and sweet. He wants.

“Dammit, boys.” 

There’s a man kneeling on the ground not far away from them. He blinks. “Hello,” he says to the man.

“Fun fact, Alan,” the man says to the box. “Long-term memory is shot.”

“Fuck,” his boy whispers again.

He says, “Oh.” He smiles. “Yeah.” And he starts to move.

“Yeah, I’m sure this would be a fascinating case study, Alan, but we didn’t have permission to experiment on these kids to begin with. You want to sort out that paperwork, that lawsuit, that super-cell of a shitstorm? You want to get Mathers into this? Because I fucking don’t--shit, quit it, you little bastards--What? No, they’re nowhere near me. All they want to do is fuck and smile. --I’m serious!”

The man moves now and they still. His boy crouches low over him, turning to look at the man, who raises his hands. “Okay, that got their attention. Yeah, okay, Alan, I get it. I’ll give it a try.” There is a sharp noise, a loud click and the man slides the box in his hand into his pocket. He looks down at them, giving his full attention. His boy presses closer.

“It’s okay, son,” the man says. There is a mask on his face. 

“He’s mine,” his boy says and that’s right. 

They look at the man, whose brows raise. “Okay,” he says slowly. “Got it. I won’t--I just want you to listen to me, all right?”

His boy smiles now and the white drifts past and they are heavy and loose again. “Okay,” he says.

“Listen carefully,” the man says and they sit up a little, not quite moving away from each other. He can listen. His boy can too. They smile and the man makes a noise like something strange happened. “Okay,” the man says, confusion in his voice. “Comes across in waves does it? It didn’t do that in the lab.”

He smiles. He doesn’t understand. His boy turns away, presses lips just below his ear. He wants again.

There is a loud snap, the man’s fingers and they look. “Attention span isn't that surprising,” the man murmurs. “Are you going to listen, boys?”

His boy grins, twists in his arms. “Sure,” his boy says and he nods, licking his lips.

The man’s eyes narrow. “Why?”

He shrugs and so does his boy. The man has kind eyes. “Why not?” he says.

The man laughs softly. “That’s right. Why not.”

The white blows through again, thicker than before and the man says, “Oh, good,” as he tastes the clean and the calm, as he closes his eyes and opens them to look at the man, the man who was there before. He likes this man. He has kind eyes. His boy reaches for the man’s arm. “O-okay,” the man says, putting his hand over his boy’s and sliding it off, “all right. I know you’re listening now.”

They smile at the man. They twine their hands together.

“Soon, this stuff in the air, all this white fog, is going to clear. And maybe you’re gonna feel a little weird, but you’ll be okay. When you feel okay, and when you feel like you can, I want you to climb back inside your truck. When you’re good to drive, just drive on home. Do you understand me, boys?”

His boy smiles, sleepy-eyed and repeats, “Drive home.”

“That’s right,” the man says. “And if you remember anything, _don’t tell anyone_.”

They shake their heads. No, they won’t. 

He smiles. He’s tired now, but he murmurs, “A secret.” His boy’s head is resting on his shoulder. He leans his against his boy’s hair and closes his eyes.

From somewhere which seems very far away, the man says, “Yeah, our secret. And Alan’s, I guess.” Then he adds, “Well, shit, aren’t you two just adorable? Wasn’t expecting that.”

He feels a hand across his brow, brushing back his hair. and someone says, “Sorry about this, kids,” followed by the sound of footsteps walking away.

 

He stirs slowly. There is a boy next to him, pressed close, head against his shoulder, legs tangled, clothes undone and disheveled. The boy stirs too. He knows this boy, his boy.

“Raylan,” his boy says and smiles. There is a thin mist in the air. It smells just a little sweet.

Raylan smiles. “Boyd.” It’s Boyd and he’s Raylan and it’s just as nice as not knowing, not caring, just as good.

Boyd reaches for him. He’s warm, Raylan is too. He wants, so much. Boyd can tell and Raylan knows because he grins. “When’d you get so pretty, Raylan?”

Raylan laughs and kisses him, slow, strong, draws a hand to his face. Boyd’s breath hitches. They rut up against each other, fingers tangled around themselves, pressure more than motion, still slow, so warm. It rises up in Raylan at the same time it does Boyd and they ride it out together, pleasure breaking across their faces as they gaze at each other.

He wants to close his eyes. 

“Raylan,” Boyd says, low and insistent. His fingers trace lines down his jaw. “Let’s stay now, all right? Stay with me.”

Raylan smiles. That sounds nice. “Stay,” he says. He pulls Boyd up again, into his lap. He lifts his face to kiss him. It’s so good.

“Stay,” Boyd whispers.

“Mmhmm,” Raylan says. The world is gray and Raylan tries to remember the whiteness, but there’s a fog in his head, it’s crowding him in.

“Don’t,” Boyd tells him, drawing him back. “You don’t need to do that.” He’s smiling softly and he’s carding his fingers through Raylan’s hair.

They sit that way for a while, until the wind blows again, but it’s not gray and it’s not white and Raylan breathes easier. He blinks and frowns. 

Boyd’s still smiling. “What?” He flicks his eyes to Raylan’s mouth, fond and wanting. 

“When did I get so pretty?” he murmurs.

Boyd laughs, kisses him. Boyd tastes wonderful. “Always,” he says.

Raylan knows that’s not right. The wind is at Boyd’s back.

He wants to pull away. Boyd isn’t his. Never was. Something...happened to them. Something about the white.

Boyd kisses him again. “Shhh,” he says. “Let’s go away again.”

The gray is all but gone. “Let’s go to sleep,” Raylan says.

“Okay.”

Raylan looks straight at Boyd at his easy acquiescence. He’s smiling, nothing wrong in his mind. He’s even looking sleepy. Raylan frowns, thoughts coming slow, memories hard to grasp. He thinks about the man. “Oh, shit,” he murmurs.

Boyd is leaning on him now, like before. “Wha’?” he mumbles and Raylan smiles, despite himself and his clear head.

“Let’s try to remember,” he says in Boyd’s ear. Boyd only huffs in response. Raylan looks down at him and frowns deeper. “Let’s clean up, too,” he says. “Put your dick away, asshole.”

Boyd half-heartedly flips him the bird and tries his hardest with clumsy fingers. Raylan still has to help as Boyd sinks lower and lower onto the grass. 

His eyes are closed, but he opens them once and looks up at Raylan. He smiles. “You didn’t go away.”

“I’m not going to,” Raylan tells him. He thinks things will be different when Boyd wakes up. He doesn’t know how to stop that from happening.

The wind blows again and it’s gray and sweet, lingering. Raylan doesn’t fight it, doesn’t want to.

Boyd tugs him down. “You sleep too,” he mumbles through the haze.

Raylan doesn’t see any reason not to.

 

Raylan wakes to darkness. 

It’s night and the only light is from the moon hanging in a clear, cold sky. It’s not too far into fall yet, or they might have been in danger. 

They’re warm because they’re together. Raylan presses closer and makes himself not think about how weird it is. He doesn’t remember feeling weird before. 

Boyd is sound asleep, still smiling that calm, wide smile. Raylan wants to touch him, but shakes his head. It must not be gone yet, whatever it was. He sort of remembers a man talking to them, but it slips away and all he can recall is the white cloud and the calm and Boyd’s smile.

How weird.

Boyd stirs, slowly coming awake and he moves away from Raylan, stiffly, unnaturally. His eyes fall to the ground, turn up to the open sky. “Raylan,” he says, a hard edge in his voice Raylan feels like he hasn’t heard for a long time. “What happened?”

“What do you mean?” Raylan asks. He forces himself not to follow Boyd, not to reach for him.

Boyd pushes himself back and away. His eyes are wide and confused. “I mean just what I say, son. What the hell happened?”

Raylan blinks. It must not have come with him. How funny. Raylan knows, sort of anyway, and he’s about to say, and--then he doesn’t. He can’t remember at all. He realizes suddenly how close he is to Boyd, where his hands are, fingers just brushing his arms, reaching. He pulls back hastily. 

“I don’t know,” Raylan said in a low voice. It sounds as though he’s tired. He feels tired, heavy, and it’s like the world is tilted to the side. Everything seems hard to understand. “Where are we?”

It’s dark and they are on the side of the road, in the tall grass. The truck is parked behind them, doors and windows open. It hadn’t been dark before, had it? And the road doesn’t look right, even from this angle.

“Raylan, that sign,” Boyd said softly, as though he couldn’t muster up any more volume, “it says Closplint.” Miles from where they’d been when they--

“What happened?”

“That’s what I asked you.”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, it looked like you did,” Boyd huffs. He’s looking around like he’s looking for an escape. His chest is rising and falling with the weight of his breathing. He’s scowling. “I don’t-I don’t understand.”

Raylan looks around too, but his eyes keep going back to Boyd, to the thin t-shirt he has on, to the way his muscles are rigid from the chill. “I don’t think we’re going to,” he says. 

Boyd glares at him. “I mean,” he says, “what. the. fuck?”

Raylan shakes his head. “It’s been hours.” He shrugs and almost laughs, “Could have been days--

“Oh my God,” Boyd groans.

“We should just go home.” And when he says that, something feels right. 

Boyd is looking at him curiously. He purses his lips and opens his mouth, but it’s a long moment before he finally says, “Yeah, okay.”

They get in the truck and they turn on the heat and Raylan has to pull the seat up from its furthest back position. Boyd looks at him weird. “What?” he asks. “You don’t know that was me.”

“You were sitting there,” Boyd says, brows raised.

“Fuck you,” Raylan says.

“Try it, asshole.”

Raylan laughs. 

When they get back, only Helen asks Raylan where he’s been. And it’s not really asking. It’s mostly an earful about how his mother was worried. He doesn’t say what he’d been up to, and she only asks so she can tell him what-for. He never hears from Boyd what his daddy said, though they never did get that ‘shine.

Sometimes he has dreams about white fog and heavy limbs and wide smiles. And Boyd. But he chalks them up to the mine and too much booze. When he leaves he never looks back and when he comes back neither one of them mentions the night they can’t remember on the side of the road. 

They have other shit to talk about anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by [a weird news article on io9](http://io9.com/5967995/argentinians-traveling-route-5-warned-that-they-may-experience-time-anomalies). It was almost PWP, but then (like all PWP I attempt) ended up with some plot somehow. 
> 
> If you want to write up your own response to the article, post it [here](http://nvrleaveharlan.livejournal.com/19896.html) at the nvrleaveharlan community on LJ.
> 
> There is also a coda I will post shortly.


End file.
